If the film you wish to show is not available in these collections, it may be available in the library’s film collection or available for purchase. The library can work with you to find obtain copyright clearance for the film.

You can also request that your students find a film at a local library or video store. Contact your Brookens Library Liaison for help teaching your students to use the WorldCat database to find films at their local library.

Free videos from the Web

YouTube and Ted.com are just two of many great sites for free video on the Web. The embed codes provided by sites like these make it easy to add the videos to Blackboard. The Library of Congress created a National Screening Room collection of American films from 1890 to 1999.

To embed a video player from Ted.com or YouTube.com in your Blackboard course site:

Copy the embed code from the video website.

Go to your Blackboard course.

In the upper right corner of your Blackboard site, make sure Edit Mode is ON.

Click on the content area in which you would like the video to appear (for example, Course Materials or Course Information).

Click on Create Item.

Enter the title of your video next to Name.

In the Text box that appears on the screen, click on the HTML button to view the HTML code.

Hints about videos in online courses

Remember that large files can take a long time to download if a student has dial up internet service. Please be careful not to upload videos directly into your Blackboard course. Always link from an outside source as stated above.

Videos should supplement content. Use videos to explain text book content more in depth, create examples of concepts, and extend the learning environment with outside curriculum resources.

Narrated lectures, when properly structured and brief, can be a good tool to deliver course content to your students.

Chunk Your Content

We recommend that you “chunk” your lectures into smaller manageable pieces no longer than 5-7 minutes. Chunking accomplishes three things for you. First, by breaking the lectures into brief topics, the likelihood of being able reuse a lecture in another course increases. Second, it is easier to update or re-record a single short video than a longer video. Third, it is easier for your students to find time to sit and concentrate for less than 10 minutes.

Write a Script

Remember to write a script for your lectures. It will help keep you from using verbal fillers and keep your videos brief, but more importantly, the script gives an alternative content piece to present to students who cannot hear your lecture and for visually impaired students. It is also very easy to create captions for your lecture by using the YouTube caption editor.

Use Images & Visual Explanations

Narrated PowerPoint lectures give you the opportunity to present your materials in a visual way, and can help you reach students who are visual learners. Try to include images that enhance your lecture. Replace text descriptions with visual representations of your topic — flow charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs, artwork, maps. Visuals will add value to your lecture and help to keep you from reading every word on your slide — something that students could easily do for themselves.

Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL)

The Excelsior Online Writing Lab (OWL) is a highly-interactive, publicly-available and media-rich online writing lab designed to help students make the transition to college-level writing. In 2014, the Excelsior OWL – ESL Writing Online Workshop (WOW) won the 2013 Distance Education Award by the National University Technology Network (NUTN).

From the Excelsior OWL Home Page you can access all of the learning areas, as well as “Additional Resources” found in the header, and “Acknowledgements”, found in the footer.

Each learning area has its own landing page, with access to the content, as well as the “How to Use OWL” and “Additional Resources” pages. Depending on the learning area, there may be additional options available on the landing page.

Once inside a learning area, you will see the online writing lab menu on the left side of the screen. The active learning area is highlighted, at which point all of the topics for that learning area are displayed below it. Some of the topics have multiple sections.

For example, if the student has provided a weak thesis statement, you may provide a link to the Thesis section, or a specific section (such as Stating your Thesis) within the Thesis section.

Support student understanding of plagiarism

The Avoiding Plagiarism section of the OWL provides a thorough overview of the topic of plagiarism. With audio, video, and supporting documentation, students will develop a keen understanding of what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it. The pre-test and post-test provide a method for students to track their progress.

In our media-centric society, the desire and need for online learning is at an all-time high. However, as more academic content goes online, the industry is running into a stumbling block as they struggle to make their online courses accessible. With recent lawsuits in higher education and updates to Section 508 on the horizon, it is more important than ever that online learning content be made accessible to students with disabilities.

In this webinar, Janet Sylvia, Web Accessibility Group Leader and Web Accessibility Trainer, will provide you with 10 tips for making your online course material accessible.

SoftChalk is a tool to help enhance text-based lectures. It allows instructors to “chunk” their content into smaller pages, add images, flashcards, graded or self-test quizzes, and more. Learn more about SoftChalk.

Kaltura Media is the video management solution at UIS. Faculty and students may upload video from other sources (MS Lync, camcorders or phones) or record web cam and/or screen capture videos through Kaltura Capture Space Lite. A fantastic feature of Kaltura is the statistics for video use. It will tell you the percentage of your video that each student watch, how many times it was access, and the average view time. Across UIS, the average view time for a video is 7 minutes and 35 seconds, which is on the longer side of the recommended 5-7 minute length for video lectures.

Beginning in Fall 2014, faculty may reserve time in the COLRS Faculty Video Recording Studio to record lectures or interviews. The room is equipped with a high quality video camera, lighting, microphone, green screen, and a computer for editing videos with Camtasia Studio.

Voicethread is a Web 2.0 tool for conversations around media — images, documents/powerpoint slides, and videos. Students and faculty can make comments using video (from a web cam), audio (upload audio file or phone in comments), or text (typing).

Ideas for Use

Icebreakers

Interactive lectures

Student presentations with authentic peer assessment

Group and personal reflections

How to Access

VoiceThread is free for K-12 educators, but not for higher education. Pricing is based on who needs to create and how often. COLRS purchased a small number of licenses for Voicethread to explore the technology. If you are interested in trying this technology in your class, please experiment with a free account which allows you to create three Voicethreads for free. If you find you use Voicethread heavily, please contact us for a full license.

This video covers how to us the controls for Impatica lectures. It covers the especially important method for switching between Flash and HTML5 mode for viewing the lecture in different browsers. If you create narrated lectures using Impatica software, you may want to share this video with your students.